


To the last parade

by More11a



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M, Melancholy, Post-MCR, Post-breakup, Post-rockstar life, growing up is hard to do, set in 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 04:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11073972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/More11a/pseuds/More11a
Summary: It was time.He said that Gerard and his „keep running“ talks were getting on his nerves. Then, Gerard accused him of only spending time with his guitars anyway.Gerard said it was over, and Frank didn't dare to ask what he meant – but he couldn't have meant that thing between the two of them, otherwise Ray and Mikey wouldn't have agreed, would they?





	To the last parade

**Author's Note:**

> Can - but doesn't have to be - read as a prequel to "To the life you make". Set around early 2013. 
> 
> This is for everyone out there who still feels sad once in a while because such a big part of your youth is no longer around. You can take the kid out of the MCRmy, but you can never truly take the MCRmy out of the kid.

It was time.  
He said that Gerard and his „keep running“ talks were getting on his nerves. Then, Gerard accused him of only spending time with his guitars anyway.  
Gerard said it was over, and Frank didn't dare to ask what he meant – but he couldn't have meant that thing between the two of them, otherwise Ray and Mikey wouldn't have agreed, would they? 

In the past, Frank has held Gerard's hair when he had to puke. Gerard has held Frank's hand when he was in pain after he got his wisdom teeth out. Frank has saved Gerard's life and Gerard has saved his, countless times, but Frank tends to forget that. 

Under a leaden sky, Frank watches absent-mindedly as Miles puts a caterpillar in his mouth. He feels old. Not quite as old as Gerard though, who's approaching 40 now if you're dead honest. 

Frank didn't laugh and say that 40 was basically the new 30, for trees. He didn't say that it doesn't matter.  
He never said it was a good idea to stop, even if he might have thought about it at some point. Rather, he acted as if Gerard destroyed his life. He even said it out loud, maybe out of boredom – no wonder, really, as he doesn't have a life any more. Thanks, Gerard. 

Frank stands up with a sigh and takes the caterpillar from his son – he's not as irresponsible as that.  
He doesn't even know what it feels like to _not_ be Frank Of My Chemical Romance. To be just Frank. It's hard.  
Just-Frank peels the hardened skin from his fingertips and Fun Ghoul doesn't feel funny at all because he needs to grow up now. 

Gerard was already talking about the end of it all when they had only just started out. He seemed to believe in a happy end and was babbling in interviews about moving into the woods and living a quiet life. Not that Frank has any doubts about Gerard pulling it off. To be honest, after all these years he wouldn't be too surprised if Gerard moved to planet Saturn to start a martial arts school. And up until now, all his crazy ideas have been successful, after all.  
Like starting a band from scratch. Conquering the world. Saving lives, being someone. Being a hero. 

Miles is wearing a t-shirt with a superhero print, and suddenly, Frank is thinking of uniforms and parades. Of the time when the Black Parade was marching and the whole world was watching.  
Frank remembers these times as black-and-white and blood red and sepia. Tragicomic and probably blown out of proportion by all the time that has passed. But he knows the world was in their hands back then, they could wrap it around their fingers like he's doing with his gum right now. 

At last, they had grown up somehow, even if their inner children still liked playing with toy weapons.  
He's not Peter Pan any more, just another lost boy. But he agreed to this end, so he only has himself to blame. 

All the craziness had become so normal at some point, and Frank honestly wonders how the people next door actually live their lives. How you deal with a normal life that's just running its course, how you can just get up in the morning year after year, work, eat, do laundry, sleep, and repeat – how does everyone deal with everyday life? It feels so shallow to him, so unimportant, so unbelievably boring.  
The kids, of course, the kids make his life worthwhile, and Jamia. But... WHAT exactly is it that you do all day long if you're not a rock star? 

Living. Loving. But what, and whom? His life is a cheap copy of itself. He almost misses the bad old times when everything was threatening to go down the drain, because they were intense at least, and all the drug binges and nightmares and breakdowns of the others made him feel alive – and what kind of shitty friend would even dare to think like that, but he thinks it anyway.  
They were alive and they were famous, and he never thought it would ever end. 

There used to be something else, too. A little bit of something very special. A small, private slice of love, a love that didn't belong to stage adrenaline and show kisses, or to sexual innuendo in interviews that they laughed their butts off about afterwards. 

And now they're sitting here, sharing a beer and their burned-out dreams. Gerard plays with his hair that's dark once again, and everything is different, but it's also the same.  
„Do you sometimes feel like you dreamed it all?“ Frank asks quietly. 

Gerard says the idea will live on.  
He draws like a madman and writes music and radiates creativity whatever he does, while Frank takes pills for his stomachaches and spends the night watching concerts in weird run-down basement clubs where he tries to feel young and wild and free again. 

He feels alone sometimes, at night, when all the demons they invented come scratching at his door, and during the day, when he stares into mask-like faces on the streets, almost waiting to see Korse among them. 

No one saw it coming, least of all they themselves – the end. But, to be completely honest, Frank doesn't know how they were supposed to step it up any further after 12 whole years.  
Frank understands that it can become difficult, that you might want to try something else. Even if he never felt like that, personally. He would have continued to 2019 and beyond, but it was not to be. 

They used to have an army – now they only have themselves left. 

_"No compromise. [...] No fucking shit. To me that's rock and roll. And I believe in rock and roll."  
(Gerard Way, March 25th, 2013)_

**Author's Note:**

> When I posted the German version of this story a few years ago, someone asked me why I chose the quote above. I guess the answer is this:  
> „No compromise“, to me, is what MCR has always been about. And in leaving us, they taught us one last time that you have to be yourself and do your own thing – no matter the cost.  
> When it was time for them to stop, they stopped. Period. No compromise.  
> And it hurts, it still does, after all these years – but it's also gold, really.


End file.
